The Asian Invasion We Didn’t Expect: Berries!
What people are saying about Dani’s hawthorn rolls:
“Mmmmummgh mmmm. These
are mmmmmretty goommmf.”
“What are these? Are they
edible? Really? Uhm, maybe
later.”
“Yuuuummmm! Fruit rolls! Can I
have more? Hey! Can you pass
the dumplings, too?”
-- Someone
-- Someone else
-- Zhang Siyao
These are Russian Hawthorn trees.
I think. There are over 80 different
species with red berries or haws.
The trees are also called hawberry,
May-tree, mayhaws, thornapple
and quickthorn. Haw was an Old
English term for hedge; ‘haguthorn’
meant a fence with thorns, in
Anglo-Saxon.
The thorns are very strong, long
and very sharp -- personal
experience.
Haws are sometimes used to make
jelly and wine in the UK. The young
leaves and flower buds are edible
and known as “bread and cheese” in
rural England.
In Mexico, they might be stuffed
into a pinata for Las Posadas, just
before Christmas. Made into a
paste with sugar and chili powder,
they become a popular Mexican
candy called rielitos.
Soon after we moved here, Dani
stuck three dead-looking sticks into
the ground. I scoffed: “Those won’t
grow.”
Today, we have three monumental,
more than ornimental, very
productive trees.
Dani gathers basins-full of these
and spends hours processing them.
Each one is de-seeded, then they
are ground into a paste, cooked,
then dried in the oven or in the sun.
The result is a thin sheet which she
makes into fruit rolls.
2020
